Bulk Email Marketing Software Tips

Article from August, 13th, 2003.

Whether you are new to bulk email marketing or a seasoned veteran, the question which software to buy comes up regularly. First of all, let's make it clear - the first decision you have to make is whether you want to do full cycle marketing yourself, outsource it completely to a marketing agency or use a combination of both methods. Outsourcing makes sense for the following reasons - it does not require any time of effort on your part, usually produces better results, and in some instances is cheaper.

Doing full cycle marketing by yourself awards you with the following advantages - it gives you full control over the process and provides you with more flexibility. In most cases, it is much cheaper, especially long term. Here are some tips if you decided to do all or part of e-mail marketing campaign yourself. Currently, there are hundreds of e-mail marketing software titles. How to pick the right ones? Here are the answers.

1. Buy specialized applications. Have you ever seen a word-processor, 3D shooter and CD player in one? Makes a horrible combination. That is why you don't what to buy a program that supposedly does everything. Some companies claim to have a "all-in-one" solution but the fact is they don't work and are too complicated. Email marketing can be divided in several parts - gathering e-mails, managing them, creating messages (HTML templates, for example), sending out e-mails, and analyzing results.
   
   
2. Select a product that can be easily integrated with other mass email software, preferably not vendor specific, as well as bulk email marketing services.
   
   
3. Buy only applications that can be run on an average computer and do not require any additional software/hardware installed. That is unless you want to shell out additional couple of grands for a new server.
   
   
4. Choose products that can be paused/terminated in the middle of the process. This may not sound very important in the beginning, but will come very significant as the volume of your marketing effort increases.
   
   
5. Buy a company, not a product. Email marketing is a rapidly growing and ever changing field. If a company specializes in mp3 players, chances are they won't keep up with the fast pace of the industry. Buy product only from the vendors who specialize in bulk email marketing applications.

Relevant links:

    • Gather e-mail addresses
    • Send bulk mail

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